Another grey and dreary day here and it seems like ground hog day most weekends. Well, at least I have a weekend now =D Getting the security of the new place upgraded to something my mum will be comfortable with. Doesn't help when the last back door that was broken is still lying around in the backyard! *sigh* Putting some more deterrants in to ensure that they don't want to try to break in. Not that we have anything to steal.. I think the most valuable would be the computer and the TV... geez, wouldn't be worth it I think....

Tonight is the last night of ADSL "broadband" surfing... joining the unwashed masses from tomorrow on dialup =P Still going to work tomorrow at 9am so I guess I won't miss the internet that much as I have uni after work and will be so tired that I'll just come home and sleep. Maybe the withdrawl symptoms will kick in on Tuesday night...

Finding Nemo.... not just a kids film. It is becoming more and more common to have "adult" happenings in animation movies these days. Things that only the older people could figure out. It has all the trimmings of the usual "find yourself" story and doing what is right, but some of the real gems are "hidden" from the kids =) One thing to look out for is a certain Monster in the credits =P

We then went to New Quay to eat and it was ok. Fel made a comment about how the docklands area look just so much like Darling Harbour in Sydney... true... but I don't think that it is as windy and cold in Sydney =D Anyways, my ADSL is being disconnected tomorrow so its unlikely that I will post every day from now on... It'll be $1/hour dialup at 33.6k until I get the ADSL connected at the new place... maybe I should buy a new USB modem so I can have it as backup for uni later (when the ADSL goes down....)

Yay! Don't have to work today as we got everything finished last night. Going back on Monday to fix up any problems that may come up and some other tidying up around the place. Went out to dinner with some family friends in Heathmont last night. It was Thai and pretty good. Not one for spicy food but it was something different! =) Going out with Fel and a few friends tonight to see Finding Nemo. Still lots to do to get ready for the move...

A shorter day today, only 10.5 hours at work.. *sigh* Tomorrow we will all finish early as its Friday =) This week, its really a case of thank God its Friday... although, I have to turn up on Saturday to finish off some stuff, then probably go back Monday to clean up everything left over. I guess its good as I get another few hundred dollars pay! =)

What a couple of days... both days working 11 hours... but at least it was during the day... probably be the same tomorrow as well. At least its paying well, although the tax man took about 1/3 of my last pay... have to wait until July next year to get it back... oh well.

Not much else happening, probably be working till at least Friday, possibly Monday next week. Meant to catch up with Nick and Chris this week some time but not sure when that will be now, I think it will have to wait until next week. Things should be more settled by then. As this job comes to an end, I have to think of finding something else that will pay me until I find a permanent job...

Raining.... and lots of it... and windy... good day to be inside... but once again, we were at the new place cleaning and moving the first few boxes of stuff that we don't need at the moment here. Spent most of the afternoon catching up on paperwork and other stuff, checking bills and all that. Stuff that hasn't been done for the last few weeks whilst I have been working. Nothing really interesting but we're also looking for a place... currently its looking for places that are either about to start construction or have just started.. That way, once the 12 month lease is up, we can move into our "own" place. 12 months is a long time and I have no idea whether I will still be in Melbourne then... Just make your own path as the situation arises I think, plans for the future get screwed up too easily by the smallest of things...

The picture on the right is one I took when driving back to work... I have done a lot of driving at night these last 3 weeks... here's one from last night, the blur is a tram going past. Don't worry, I have been at a complete stop whenever I have taken the photos. =P

Wow, it was Wednesday that I last wrote... I didn't think it was that long ago =D Been not feeling so well, first the sore throat, which is almost non existant now but I have a cold which blocks the sinuses and makes it hard to breathe, having to do that through my mouth most of the time... especially at night... getting better and I'm not working this weekend which is a very welcome thing =) Also got paid on Thursday but it wasn't exactly how much I expected, all because of tax, HECS and all those things that the tax man takes. Still, happy to get the money =P

Work has been going ok... not much more problems anymore, just getting the job done isn't as easy as it seems. The requirements are constantly changing and even though there is more staff now, its still moving quite slowly. Really glad that we are moving back to "normal" work times next week so I'll be able to get my bodyclock to actually recognise what a morning is =P

Today, we went to clean the new place and there was a lot of dirty, dusty stuff that needed cleaning, even though the unit is empty. Spent a few hours doing that and now it's almost ready to move in. I won't have a ADSL connection for a while as I have to disconnect at the end of this billing cycle which is the end of the month and then reconnect at the new place when we move in in a few weeks time and then it should take hopefully less than 3 weeks to connect back up. Still have dial-up but I only have a 33.6k modem =(

Not feeling so well... I think I picked up something at uni on Monday night and I had a sore throat last night. It hasn't gotten any better although it hasn't gotten worse so I guess that is a good thing. There were already a lot of people coughing including the lecturer. I think the same has happenned at work, probably just the flu but you never know. At least its not in asia where people would be suspecting that all these people have SARS...

What a rip off... My car, while getting towed to the insurance company's depot was charged for using the tollway. The tow truck towed my car there and obviously it got charged as well... Its only $1.30 but still... seriously screwed! =P Today was better although I believe one person at my place of work is trying to get the better of me and telling me that I don't supervise my people hard enough. Geez..

Bleh, things are going from bad to worse at work I think, its just not happening... people are making mistakes that they shouldn't, things that they have done for the past few days. Its just frustrating when I try to give them a bit of rotation to do other things so that they don't get so bored, and they thank me by making mistakes... I don't know why I even bother...

*sigh* Friday was not a good day at work. I had my first real "authority" problem where one of the people decided to argue against why we had to do things a certain way (to double check for errors is the reason) He basically wanted to have a big discussion about it. One of the other, more senior supervisors, backed me up and it went all the way to the project managers who came and spoke to him. It was ok, just that he won't be working there again after this thing is finished.

There was only 1 person on my team (not the one mentioned above) at work tonight as the other two had already taken leave. We were actually quite productive and made quite a bit of progress, although the target was completely and utterly out of the reach. Those targets are actually almost impossible to reach and were made under a different scenario, so I was told... We have a revised target that is constant and we will reach that easily every day. =)

Got the keys to the rental house today. Went and had a look but couldn't get the garage door to open (its manual and the key just didn't open the lock) but inside was ok, a lot of marks on the walls and all that. We are thinking of taking a camera to record all the marks as proof so that they can't say we did it when we move out.

Hmm... got my car back... it was out in Airport West getting fixed so its all good, although I have doubts about the quality of the workmanship. There is a lifetime guarantee so that should mean it is ok, probably just little things like different sounds when driving or going over bumps. There was also some good news from the insurance company (well, their lawyers) who rang me this morning and they will try to recover the costs of renting the car (around $500) from the guy who ran into the back of me.

Off to work in about an hour... hopefully have a good day, just like yesterday! =)

Yah... been MIA for the last two days... My birthday was spent mostly (well, the last 1/3 of it) at work... I didn't get to leave until 12:15am as we had not made the targetted dispatch scripts. *sigh* Today was much better. We got to the target (even though it had increased) and then some. =) Didn't actually do much yesterday, just bummed around at home and went out and looked at some shops before work.

Today I went to have lunch in Victoria St Richmond before going to work. Oh... and I also am getting my car back tomorrow sometime before work so I don't have to rent the car anymore (and pay $30/day)! =) That was the birthday present from the repairer, but I still have to pay excess of $750! =( Oh well.

Hmm, I'm now a quarter of a century old.... feels the same... probably get tired more easily now... old age =P Plan to do nothing and just have a normal day. The importance of my birthday isn't as it used to be. Its just another day now.

Long night last night, went to work, then uni, then back to work and finished around 12 midnight. Not many problems last night and we now have targets on how many books we send to the contracted scanner. It ramps up, we're up to 5000 scripts per day (this is only the 2nd day). The target for today is 9000 scripts, but we were already ahead. Its just waiting for the people to finish marking and checking them that it actually taking the longest time.

Uni was pretty good. Went to the tute where we got to play with using Excel to access an Access database and create a basic Business Intelligence system. We get to actually do "programming" (click click click tools as the lecturer says) which is actually just designing an interface and screens for a system (the back end handles everything else apparently). Finally get to do something with real world application =D

Whats with all the death, doom and gloom lately... this is a capture of the "breaking news" tonight:

Work tonight was ok, I finally started supervising my section (its the last section in the processing) and there have been a few hiccups but everything is going somewhat to plan. =)

Hmm, dunno how often I will write here for the next couple of weeks at least. I'm very busy at work, and during the days I'm usually running around doing errands and stuff. Work is pretty boring and tedious, just sorting out problems that other people have found or created. A lot of it is simple and the errors shouldn't have been made. It just takes a bit of concentration! =P

Another thing, I never realised how many places I have to change my address when I am moving. We've created a list and its totalling 12 things at the moment, things like credit card have like 2 or 3 different banks. Still waiting for the rest of my tax refund. I got most of it, but there were some things from last year that I could claim (they only figured it out this year) for so I will get some more back from there =) Not sure what I want to spend it on but probably just save it up for the moment. Don't really need anything...

Just a short post.... working now in the afternoon/evening so a bit busy with that. Last night was the first night and there weren't that many problems. Just a few procedural things that people weren't paying attention to when working. It was all ok though. Still finished a bit late fixing up the last few things that were left so left around 11:45p instead of 11:30p. Hopefully get to come home on time tonight! =D

Stupid drivers, take 2!
Stupid girl driving behind me tonight coming home from work. We are all lined up behind a tram and all of a sudden, lights start flashing in the background. Its a fire engine, so when traffic starts moving, I drive over to the left hand side so that it can come up and pass. The tram even stops so the fire engine has a clear run. The stupid girl decides, oh, I can pass and drives up next to me. I beep her and she realises why everyone else is on the left hand side and stopped... its like hello??? there might be something with flashing lights and a siren behind you... geez

Work was another training session, this time only for team leaders. The real test will be tomorrow morning when we really test the system/process. We tried to run through tonight and it failed miserably =( So we really don't know what we are doing until we actually do it. Its going to be a really steep learning curve. We were left scratching our heads as to some of the problems that came up. *sigh* Here's hoping for a good day tomorrow!

Woot! The place that we wanted to rent will rent it to us. So now we're moving back to the suburbs =D

A few things, not necessarily in any logical or chronological order...

Bleh, I think the job thing with the ex-manager will probably fall through. It just didn't fall the way that it was meant to so I'm a bit disappointed about that. I guess I will eventually find something, I just don't like having to compete with everyone else in Australia that is looking for an IT job. It sux =( I can't keep studying and I have to find a job that at least pays a decent wage and not a casual jobs like I currently have. It brings in money but is no way to go through life. *sigh*

Stupid drivers who don't take care of the conditions they drive in. It rained tonight, and yes, the roads are slippery after it rains, so its not like you should go around racing and expect other people to avoid you if you decide to drive into their lane. I try to give people extra room, but then some maniac in his souped up rice-boy car decides that that space can be filled by them. They think that they get there quicker or something by being one car space in front of someone. Then they don't go when the lights turn green and waste all their rice-boy power revving their car at the lights.

Work was "formal" training tonght for the AIM which starts on Thursday. They seem to have more of a process set up this time and have thought a few more things through. Hopefully the computer systems holds up and there aren't any fundamental database errors. One of the IT guys tried to explain the application to all of us but I think it just confused them a hell of a lot =P Oh well, techos and their explanations =D

Another day of running around organising stuff for moving. Then had class tonight where I was completely bored, going through the case studies that were the same as last year. It seems as like the whole masters course is about the same content, just different subjects... It made me just feel like not being there and rather sitting at home... which is another thing, I have been feeling really tired the past few days... just can't shake it. I slept for like 12 hours and still didn't feel like getting up. =(

I received these today as a gift for my birthday from Caroline... yummmmm... =) A picture of the tempting chocolate + alcohol is here

Yet another lazy weekend. Went to have lunch with some friends in Studley Park Boathouse where we were able to sit in the sun (and only a little wind) and chat and all that =) Fel and Vince turned up late so we ended up being there for like 2 hours, I think the staff were wanting to get rid of us by then =P So here is the picture of us on a suspension bridge in the bushland around there. Can't believe that it is so close to the city yet there is just bushland around. =)

Planning on going to visit Nick (back right) at his "new" place in Weribbee but have to arrange a time that is suitable, due to my work committments and all that starting next week.

New month already... ooh.. its my birthday coming up soon =D Not that I am expecting much, I will be working that night anyways. A quarter of a century has passed since my first breath on this earth and I don't think that I have achieved anything... thats kinda sad... oh well. I'm not expecting to change the world but just would like to leave at least an impression somewhere.

We got some boxes last night and some more this morning from family friends so we can start packing this weekend. Even though we don't have much stuff, its still quite a bit and I'm not sure whether we need all of it or not. A lot of stuff I have hasn't been used for ages, but still keep it for no apparent reason. May be this will be a chance to get rid of some... I dunno... I usually end up keeping stuff that I think I might need, like lecture notes from my undergrad degree. I really don't think I will ever even use them again

Going to work tonight so that will be just so much fun =( Guess that I have to earn a living somehow... Weekend is here and I'll be having lunch with the usual suspects on Sunday at Studley Park Boathouse. =)